Council services under serious threat

Council services in Carmarthenshire and throughout the UK have been pushed to the edge of the precipice by cuts that were started in 2010 by the Con-Dems. Council funding has been in crisis since that time with the Tories in government in Westminster. The pandemic further weakened many council services despite the heroic efforts of our members and other staff to keep services functioning. Further cuts will push many services over the edge.

The trade unions are not prepared to allow jobs and services to disappear into the abyss. Plaid led Carmarthenshire County Council have informed the trade unions that they envisage making over £20m of cuts in the next financial year 2023/24.

We call on Plaid led Carmarthenshire County Council to join us in fighting council cuts by implementing a legal needs led no cuts budget.
As has been stated previously many County Councillors and managers would prefer to be growing or at least maintaining services not making efficiencies (mostly cuts), savings (often cuts) or cuts. But the crisis of capitalism is such that the Tories on behalf of their rich friends will continue to seek to make working class and middle class people pay for the increased wealth of the super-rich by attacking our living standards and attacking vital services that we that we need but they don’t use.

The choice for councillors is whether to stand with the trade unions and the communities of Carmarthenshire in organising and mobilising opposition to the cuts or simply lament as they have done previously that there is nothing we can do and pass on the pain. The question is posed quite starkly whose side are you on the side of the trade unions and working class people who will suffer the most from further cuts or with the Tories implementing their cuts.

Due to the lack of resistance by councils including Carmarthenshire to previous cuts they were and are seen as fair game for further cuts. There is a saying ‘weakness invites aggression’ that is aptly applies here. Because councils like Carmarthenshire have passively passed on previous Tory government cuts then it was almost inevitable that the Tories acting in the interests of their rich friends would seek to make major cuts to council services again due to the above; the cost-of living crisis and their inept handling of the economy. Unfortunately, they have been aided and abetted by a Welsh Labour Government who see their role as passing on the misery of Tory cuts with barely a whimper let alone mobilising opposition to public sector cuts.

While its true that the Welsh Labour Government has to a very limited extent ameliorated council cuts in Wales the result at best is that some councils in Wales are peering over the edge of the precipice rather than falling in as was the case in England where Northampton, Slough and Croydon (twice) declared themselves technically bankrupt.

We say Carmarthenshire County Council should set a budget that meets the needs of local communities and its workforce using its reserves and prudential borrowing and then spend this money while demanding Welsh Government restores funding to 2010 levels ( before austerity started) and return the monies cut from Carmarthenshire’s council budget since that time approximately £120m this would provide funding to restore and even improve services such as building council houses/accommodation and vastly improving the current lamentable bus service .

Carmarthenshire County Council could act as a beacon to other councils to do likewise of course the Welsh Labour Government should likewise demand and organise to get their funding restored to 2010 levels as well. This should be the first step to building a mass campaign of defiance and resistance that can defeat Tory cuts.

As part of this campaign to put pressure on Carmarthenshire County Council to fight and to build resistance to further devastating Tory cuts Carmarthenshire County Unison branch supported by other local authority trade unions and in conjunction with Swansea Trades Council to which we are affiliated will be calling and holding a series of No Cuts Budget meetings starting at the Selwyn Samuel Centre, Llanelli at 7.00pm on the 17th of January 2023. We urge all those who want to keep vital council services to attend. We welcome councillors to come and put forward any alternatives they have to stopping the cuts or to justify why they think there is no alternative to cuts to the public and the trade unions.

Mark Evans
Branch Secretary
Carmarthenshire County Unison